This is no cave

[Razgovory]

As expected, Sri Lankan food was crap.  I usually try the local stuff wherever I go, but I was warned that wouldn't work in Sri Lanka.  We brought tons of our own food there.  Only things they did well were tea and papaya.  Yes, the tea was good.  It was one of the places on earth where the question "tea or coffee?" was redundent.

I hear the best part is the rape-slaves.  They are said to be "not unpleasant".

[Darth Wagtaros]

This is why I never travel outside the euro zone.

I found the eurozone somewhat more run down than what I was used to in North America.

That's because they bomb themselves back to the stone age every few decades. 

[Ed Anger]

This is why I never travel outside the euro zone.

I found the eurozone somewhat more run down than what I was used to in North America.

That's because they bomb themselves back to the stone age every few decades.

Fuckers are overdue. 

[garbon]

Both Mart and Pat are ridiculous.

[Monoriu]

Sri Lanka.  What can I say.  I've met some good, helpful people.  But I've also met plenty of other kinds of people.  Not just talking about the fucker.  My wife took a pic of a group of tea leaf gathering old ladies.  They smiled and posed for the picture.  The next word that came out of their mouths was "money".  You go to a public bathroom, and a young man would come out of nowhere, block your way and demand money.  You go to a temple, take off your shoes, come back and try to reclaim them, and someone would say "money".  You ask hotel staff to do anything, and they take a serious look at what your hand was holding first.  The problem is usually solved by equivalents of US$1, so the damage is limited.  But it is just so annoying. 

[Monoriu]

We went to the temple of sacred tooth in Kandy.  Highly regarded sacred, ancient, religious place in Sri Lanka.  There was a museum there.  What was the single most prominent exhibit, the one that all the temple staff were extremely eager to show and explain to us?

A long, modern, photo series that lined the four walls of the hall.  Photos showing damage to the temple done by a Tamil Tiger bomb.  I can understand the anger and the frustration.  But somehow I don't think this bodes well for national reconciliation. 

Another important exhibit was the coinage and notes from different countries that tourists donated throughout the years.  Didn't see the tooth though.

Sri Lankan money.  They issued a new series recently.  The topside showed a pic of the sitting Sri Lankan president.  The reverse side showed a pic that 90% resembled the Marines raising the flag on Mount whatever on Iwo Jima, only replaced by Sri Lankan soldiers. 

[Monoriu]

We went to Bangkok before we came back to Hong Kong.  The contrast between Bangkok and Columbo, and between Thailand and Sri Lanka is too great for words to describe.  Bangkok feels modern, with a great deal of activity any time of the day.  The people were friendly, the food was wonderful, I could comfortably walk anywhere in the city, and everything worked as they should. 

Columbo really feels like third world.  Army checkpoints everywhere.  I saw starving animals languishing in the streets.  Tourists are regarded as opportunities for rip-off.  The cars - half of them had Japanese characters written all over them.  Sri Lanka is a dumping ground for cars the Japanese no longer wanted, and the locals don't even bother to remove the words.  Your gender determines how you're treated. 

[MadImmortalMan]

This is why I never travel outside the euro zone.

Rich western countries...

Poland is in the Eurozone too. Not just rich western countries.

[Martinus]

This is why I never travel outside the euro zone.

Rich western countries...

Poland is in the Eurozone too. Not just rich western countries.

Poland is not in the Eurozone. 

[jimmy olsen]

I'm so disappointed, I thought this was gonna be a discourse on Platonic Philosophy from the perspective of the Matrix.

[Pat]

Wow, what can I say. One of the first things to strike us about Colombo was that there were no beggars anywhere and the roads were clean, and all the people were really friendly. Nothing like that ever happened to us. We weren't hassled for money like that a single time. In fact I don't think we had a single unpleasant experience with people hassling us. Except for that time when another lankese told the guy to stop hassling us. Certainly no one blocking our way demanding money to move or anything like that.

[Razgovory]

This is why I never travel outside the euro zone.

Rich western countries...

Poland is in the Eurozone too. Not just rich western countries.

Rich is in the eye of the beholder.  Not all of them seem so rich to me.

[Admiral Yi]

I'm curious Mono, what was your thinking behind planning a tourist trip to a country that just emerged from a horrific civil war? 

[Monoriu]

I'm curious Mono, what was your thinking behind planning a tourist trip to a country that just emerged from a horrific civil war?

Ask the Mrs, her idea 

Her thinking process is like this.  It's January, and she hates cold.  So Europe and North America are out.  We've been to Australia many times.  New Zealand is too expensive this time of the year (it is their warmest month).  Japan is sold out.  We just did China.  So we need someplace that is both warm and new to us.  India was her first choice, but it is expensive.  So she looked at a place that is next to India. 

After this experience, we'll never hire a guide for more than one day.  A guide for the whole trip only works for people who are happy buying crap.  We usually buy nothing on our trips, and this will not work with guides.  From now on, we join 1-day tours if we need a guide.  These folks work for tips rather than kickbacks.

[Monoriu]

We were actually quite worried that the fucker would ambush us at the airport during our return trip.  He knew our flight information, and we just did him some significant financial harm.  But when we arrived at Columbo airport, we were relieved.  This place had the tightest security in all airports we've seen, and we've seen quite a few.  I think I passed at least 5-6 security checkpoints from the airport entrance to the plane.  Everybody was searched, every bag x-rayed multiple times, and only those with boarding passes could get anywhere.